Rape-kill whiff in 25-year-old woman's death, missing and found dead in maize field
Telegraph | 16 February 2024
A 25-year-old woman, who had been missing since Wednesday evening, was found dead on Thursday morning in a maize field in Malda district.
Her relatives and local residents alleged she was raped and killed.
Police have recovered her body and are waiting for the post-mortem report to know the cause of her death. A person has been detained in connection with the incident.
“She was married but was staying with her parents. Yesterday (Wednesday), she took part in a local Saraswati Puja but after 7pm couldn’t be found. We searched for her throughout the night,” said one of her relatives.
On Thursday morning, her body, found in a maize field, bore injury marks. "We suspect she was sexually assaulted and then killed," the relative added.
The incident, coming within a fortnight of the abduction and brutal killing of a 10-year-old girl in the district, as well as a spate of robberies in jewellery shops and other places in the past few weeks, triggered protests from the business fraternity.
On Thursday, representatives of 182 trade organisations affiliated to the Malda Merchant Chamber of Commerce organised a rally in all 15 blocks of the district, alleging deterioration in law and order.
A delegation of the MMCC led by Jayanta Kundu, the president, and Uttam Basak, a joint secretary, submitted a memorandum to chief minister Mamata Banerjee through the district magistrate, seeking her intervention.
“A number of jewellery shops were looted in less than a month in our district. The only daughter of a trader was brutally killed and now another murder has been reported.... We are concerned about the situation. That is why we have voiced our protests. We want the chief minister to take necessary initiatives so that crimes can be curbed,” said Kundu.